Lai Chau Airport continues to be identified in the National Airport System Plan for the period 2021-2030, vision to 2050.
The Ministry of Construction has just issued a decision approving the adjustment of the National Airport System Plan for the period 2021-2030, with a vision to 2050.
According to the decision, in the period 2021-2030, the whole country plans 36 airports, including 19 international airports and 17 domestic airports.
In which, Cao Bang Airport is identified as one of 19 international airports and is being proposed for research to increase the scale from level 4C to level 4E.
In the list of domestic airports, Lai Chau Airport continues to be identified along with airports such as Dien Bien, Sa Pa, Na San...
By the 2050 vision, the plan identifies the formation of 37 airports nationwide, including 20 international airports and 17 domestic airports.
According to the plan, Lai Chau Airport is oriented to be a 4C-class airport, with a designed capacity of about 300,000 passengers per year, a land use demand of about 171.7 hectares with a total estimated investment of about 8,088 billion VND.
Continuing to be named in the plan is considered an important premise for Lai Chau to complete investment procedures according to regulations.
However, the actual implementation of airport projects in the northern mountainous region shows that the process of realizing planning is still facing many difficulties.
Typically, the Sa Pa Airport Project (Lao Cai) was approved for investment policy by the Prime Minister in the form of public-private partnership (PPP) from October 2021.
The project has a scale of 371 hectares, a total investment of nearly 7,000 billion VND, and an initial capacity of about 3 million passengers per year.
Although the site clearance work has basically been completed, the project has not yet been able to start construction because the investor has not been selected after many bidding organizations.
Nearly 5 years since being approved, the Sa Pa airport project is still on paper, unable to take shape.
According to a representative of the Lao Cai Provincial Traffic Construction Investment Project Management Board, the locality is still coordinating with ministries and sectors to find capable investors, expecting the project to be implemented in the near future.
Meanwhile, Dien Bien Airport - the only airport project in the Northwest region that has completed upgrading and put into operation - has not yet fully exploited its capacity.
On July 13, information from the Department of Construction of Dien Bien province, the airport currently mainly maintains the Dien Bien - Hanoi round-trip route with a frequency of about one flight per day, especially on some weekends there are additional evening flights.
This reality shows that the operational efficiency of small-scale airports in mountainous areas is still a problem that needs to be carefully calculated, especially in the context that the aviation industry still faces many difficulties and transportation demand is not really stable.
Besides market factors, airport investment in the northern mountainous provinces also faces many challenges in terms of terrain, operating conditions and flight methods.
This is also one of the reasons why many projects take a lot of time to complete procedures or find suitable investors.
